Beaufort Sea – Arctic

Beaufort Sea

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Location of Beaufort Sea, Arctic

Coordinates: -150.00000000011198, 72.99999999314862

Significance of Site

The Beaufort Sea site was selected to observe how Arctic sea ice changes during the period of Arctic daylight, from late spring to early fall (May to September). It is one of the most studied and best known sea ice study areas in the world.

Location

The Beaufort Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of Alaska and Canada’s Northwest Territories and Yukon, and west of Canada’s Arctic islands.

Center Coordinate:Latitude 73° 00' 00" N, Longitude 150° 00' 00" W

Date of Time Series

July 28, 1999 - July 8, 2010.

Site Overview

The Beaufort Sea research area is a location of sea ice and sea pack that covers over 400,000 km2(250,000 mi2). It is important to researchers primarily because of its relationship with climate change on the arctic ice.

Lessons Learned from Analysis of Imagery Time Series

Monitoring this area has provided significant information about rates of movement, formation of leads, thickness, age, melting parameters, and the albedo of Arctic sea ice. This has helped to quantify and improve our knowledge of the the impacts of global climate change on the cryosphere.

Importance of Time Series

This region has been studied since the 1950's and has become one of the most studied ice regions in the world. It has been subject to many surface heat budget studies as well as submarine sonar cross sections. The extent of Artic sea ice is decreasing, with considerable year to year variability. This site is near the edge of the ice pack and thus provides considerable information about how these changes occur. The imagery time series provides the sea ice community with the highest resolution data ever obtained to document these changes. Additionally, the imagery is being to monitor changes on time scales ranging from days to decades, and to study different climate scenarios effectively.

Collection Information

This area has been collected in the summer months (May-September) from 1999-2011 on a monthly basis. Generally two to three collects per month.